There is a requirement for aircraft certification to minimize hazards in the very unlikely event of uncontained engine rotor failures. Some current aircraft have their engines mounted either side of the rear end of their fuselage. This means that these engines have significant fuselage structure between them to deflect rotor failure debris and as the engines are spaced by the fuselage diameter, the angle range for impact is reduced and hence the probability of failure of one engine causing the failure of the other is very small.
It is desirable to mount a pair of engines higher on the fuselage to reduce engine related noise amongst other requirements. This is shown in FIG. 1 where existing mounting locations are given by engine pair A and new engine positions are given by B. Note that new engine positions B mean that the engines are in a direct ‘line-of-sight’ of one another. However, with current mounting systems it is possible that cross engine debris could cause failure of a mount leading to a potential loss of the engine. With the engines (B) in a higher position such a loss could also lead to the released engine damaging flight control surfaces such as on a tail-plane. Furthermore, the industry trend for larger fan diameter engines for a given thrust results in a larger target for cross-engine debris.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative mounting arrangement that ensures any engine does not become detached from the fuselage or wing in the event of release of an engine component and in particular a part of a rotor disc.